Building Capacity to Resolve Conflict in Côte d’Ivoire

Search for Common Ground’s “Reconciliation of Conflict in Divided Communities” project, funded by USAID, began in late 2009. The project aims to facilitate the reconciliation of divided ethnic and religious groups in specific areas of Côte d’Ivoire, by building community leaders’ skills, knowledge, and confidence in conflict resolution, and by creating opportunities for dialogue at the community and regional level.

Local leaders gather to share their conflict resolution experiences during a recent Day of Solidarity, held on April 22, 2010.

In the rural regions of Bas Sassandra and Eighteen Mountains, SFCG’s project has made significant progress in strengthening the capacity of both traditional leaders and other community members to use the tools and processes of conflict resolution. SFCG has used several strategies in building local capacity including:

• Conflict management trainings for over 143 local leaders on types of conflict and techniques for conflict resolution
• Integrated dialogue sessions on key conflict issues such as resettlement, identity, the Land Law and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR)
• Solidarity events, exchanges of experience, radio programming, and community theater.

Women have especially benefited from SFCG’s programming and have come to play an integral role in local conflict resolution efforts in some communities. Ms. Goli Kla, who was involved in efforts at building a local school in her community of Tabou, reflected on the importance of SFCG’s training for her and other women saying, “Women rarely intervene in resolving conflicts at the local level. One consults a woman last.”

After SFCG training, Ms. Kla had both the skills and courage to approach the local leaders of two villages who were not cooperating in the building of the local school. She helped expose the origins of the conflict and assisted in the mediation process. The local leadership was then able to work collaboratively to build a school where children from the two villages attended and socialized together.

Women from Bin-houyé (Katouo) asked to help mediate a land dispute between two cousins, based on their SFCG training.

Women from Bin-houyé used the training they received to help solve a land dispute between two cousins. Where local traditional leaders had failed, these women impressed the entire community with their conflict resolution ability, using mediation techniques to establish a new border between the two properties.

In Their Own Words:

The “Reconciliation of Conflict in Divided Communities” project has personally impacted participants, and through them, their communities.

 We women — your daughters, your sisters, your mothers — solved a land dispute her in Katouo. I invite all women to involve themselves in conflict resolution. […] In ancient times, women never did so, but today, the training we received from SFCG is changing the past. Today is a day of social cohesion and of cultural transformation that will allow women to contribute positively to the conflicts that occur in their communities. 

~Ms. Delphine Touadego, SFCG Facilitator in Bin-Houyé

When we arrived in Katouo, […] we tried to solve the land dispute between Césaire and Victor according to the training we received from SFCG. First we approached the village leader, because in order to solve a conflict all parties need to be involved. Then we used mediation to find a solution.

 ~Ms. Armelle Séa, member of the Group of Women Patriots of Bin-Houyé

 I didn’t participate in the training SFCG gave, but I benefitted from the sessions held after that training by Delphine Touadego. She explained how to use mediation and how to use collaborative approaches to conflict. We have come to Katouo several times to help resolve conflicts [using this training].

 ~Ms. Eugénie Seleu